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Somewhere in the Night

71 votes

Producing House

George Taylor returns from WWII with amnesia. Back home in Los Angeles, while trying to track down his old identity, he stumbles onto a three year old murder case and a hunt for a missing $2 million.

movie

Status: Released

Released Date: 1946-06-12

Runtime: 110 mins

Director: Joseph L. Mankiewicz

Spoken language: English

Genres: Mystery, Thriller, Crime

Original title: Somewhere in the Night

Production Companies: 20th Century Fox

Production Countries: United States of America

Reviews

G

Geronimo1967
"Taylor" (John Hodiak) returns from a war-torn Europe after WWII disfigured and suffering from memory loss. Gradually, as his amnesia starts to fade, he recalls the name of one man who might be able to help him get back on his feet so sets off to Los Angeles to find him. Pretty quickly he discovers that this isn't going to be an easy task - and it's only after he is beaten and dumped outside the door of "Christy" (Nancy Guild) that he regales his story and then she decides to get him introduced to police lieutenant "Kendall" (Lloyd Nolan). This is where the story starts to hot up. It seems his friend ("Cravat") was caught up in what appears to be some postwar Nazi money laundering/smuggling and it's a race against time to find the cash before it's gone along with a likely murderer. The largely B-list cast all work quite well here. Nobody is trying to outshine the other and so that allows the solid story to develop and play out properly. It's not just a routine crime drama, there are a few twists and the paucity of characters on screen allows for more of them to become a little more substantial as we progress through this intriguing investigation to quite an exciting denouement. It's maybe just ten minutes too long, it takes a while to build up steam - but still, if you like the genre, it's at the better end and worth a watch.
2023-05-22

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